Chapter 23

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

Ureeblay continued to pull the loaded travel-drag through thick, knee-high, meadow grasses and small clumps of tall, white-budded plants he didn't recognize. The young traveler hated to admit it, but he was as satisfied as he was going to get with the mediocre distances he and the wolf were able to cover each day with the travel-drag.

It didn't help that for the last two days he knew that by continuing to follow his trusty traveling companion, the river, his trek was making a sweeping turn to the Cool and away from the Warm, the direction he wanted to go. Also over the past two days, the old, impatient Ureeblay from the other side of the Toolie was fighting with the new Ureeblay, born during his adventure on this side of the great river in the territory of the Hurstmon.

The old him thought each step he took over this meadowland following this smaller, curving river to the banks of the Toolie was a stupid step farther away from where he had washed ashore. His goal was much further upstream and beyond the point where this adventure of his began on the far side of the river. Once he reached his destination, the old him also figured the spirits would provide a way for him to float back across the wide river. He just needed to travel two days upstream beyond the spot where Achinay pushed the snag with him on it, into the Toolie.

The old Ureeblay wanted to get back to the plants, the land, and the people he recognized. He wanted to experience the comfort of his mother's shelter and her care again. That boy he was before desired the safety he would find back in Sweet Water camp, among all the clans of the Welow Swongli. Most of all, the old Ureeblay wanted to return in triumph to this summer's congregation.

The young man could picture it now. He would casually walk into camp carrying a backpack full of bog apples as well as weapons he'd handcrafted by himself and used successfully. Wearing the clothing that he'd made from the skins of big animals he'd hunted and killed on his own, he would have the medium-sized top and bottom turtle shell, as well as the largest crested-back snapping turtle shell ever seen, prominently displayed on his other gear and food in the load bed of his fine travel-drag. In addition to all of those things, he would have at his side a honey-colored spirit wolf with eyes like the blue sky—a spirit wolf that was now his trusted hunting and traveling companion after he'd saved the magnificent animal from the vine of passing by killing the widow's snare plant that had trapped her in its gripping tentacle-like creepers.

The new Ureeblay wanted to get home, too. He also wanted to return with all his hard-earned wealth and accumulated possessions; however, the only way to do that was with the travel-drag to move them. To move the travel-drag as fast as possible he wanted terrain that didn't have any steep drops or high climbs anywhere on the way to the Toolie. Once he got the loaded travel-drag to the big river, he would encounter enough natural barriers he'd have to get around as he and the wolf moved upriver to reach the point he came ashore and beyond. Once there, he hoped he'd have thought of a way to cross safely back over the Toolie with the wolf, all their gear and supplies, as well as his travel-drag.

In the meantime, the new Ureeblay needed the easiest trail to the Toolie he could find. Since he'd noticed all the big fish down in the lake from the heights of the boulder ridge, he knew from his sire's teachings that fish that big had to come from somewhere with enough food to support their size and numbers—and that wasn't the lake. Ureeblay knew the fish had to swim from somewhere else to the lake. That place had to be the Toolie. For fish as big as those to swim upstream and reach the lake, the land the river traveled through couldn't have any steep declines that would form shallow rapids or drops that created cascades or waterfalls. Since all those big fish made it to the lake to spawn, he'd have the easiest time pulling the travel-drag along the same route the fish followed while swimming to the lake.

Neither of the two parts of him, the boy nor the young man, wanted to consider what could happen if any Hurstmon discovered them while here on this meadowland. This open land with nothing but high grass and some clumps of brush would be the perfect location for the huge Hurstmon to run him down. He'd seen just how fast those colorfully dressed warriors could trample across open meadows.

The new Ureeblay was getting closer to completely winning the argument with each step he took. Now the voice of the old Ureeblay was getting fainter and fainter in his head. He wondered if this was another aspect of growing up, listening to his inner voice of reason in the face of frustration. However, frustration was growing in both his younger self and his maturing self presently inside his head, and his new self was feeling the need for haste, too. Not only did he miss his mother and his sister, he didn't want them to have to wonder what had happened to him, or if he was still alive, or when he would come back to them, for any longer than he could help it.

Now that he let himself remember exactly how this whole adventure began, Ureeblay was becoming more and more convinced Achinay would be telling people stories that had him falling off the log, drowning, dead, and his body gone in the big river. If his one-time friend remained true to his past form, the young man figured as he pulled his load through the grass, by Achinay's sixth telling he'd have Ureeblay slipping and breaking his skull on the log, which they begged him not to climb out on after the big fish. Achinay would tell of Ureeblay drowning as something really big pulled his wayward friend's unconscious body out of Achinay's grip while almost falling off the log himself.

Achinay would look mournfully at each person gathered to listen to him as he told of helplessly watching Ureeblay disappear under the surface in a swirl of blood and bubbles, his jerking carcass seen being eaten farther out in the river by a monstrously huge fish with a mouthful of teeth the size of knives, and the torn-up, uneaten little parts being lost in the Toolie—all because of Ureeblay's own carelessness.

Ureeblay knew that Achinay's voice was louder and more persistent than Crosof's voice ever was; be it quarrelsome, boastful, or gruesome. However, maybe what happened there on the bank of the Toolie made Crosof start growing up a little, too. "Only time would tell," as his mother liked to say—to which his sire always added, "Along with the Swongli in the heavens."

Because of all of those things—wanting to get home to his mother and sister, his slower than expected progress pulling the drag, the river's turn away from his ultimate goal, the frustrations he was feeling and the anger at his one-time friends, the lingering threat of the Hurstmon—three times in the last two days of travel, Ureeblay had revised his estimates of how long it was going to take him to reach the Toolie. Twice he'd tried to figure out how long it might be until he got to the spot where he'd washed ashore. Now, he could only guess at how many days it might take him and the wolf to arrive with the travel-drag at the spot across the Toolie from the location where his adventure began.

Ureeblay finally told himself that the wolf, the loaded travel-drag, and his new self would get there when they got there, and then he turned all his worries and impatience over to the spirits as a sour offering. He remembered his sire had once told him as they studied the twinkling Swongli up in the night sky, that if the spirits only were satisfied with the fruits of a man's life as homage, how could those same spirits truly savor those efforts without also sampling the man's frustrations, failures, and heartaches as well. Now, the young man was beginning to appreciate what his sire was telling him.

Father Sun in all his bright glory was almost directly overhead in the clear, blue sky that the young man now thought of as the color of the wolf's eyes. The wide rim of his conical, woven hat shaded his own eyes from the glare around him, while covering his head and part of his shoulders from the direct rays. His bison vest protected most of his back. The smell of the warm grass, the odor of newly-cured leather from his bison vest, and a hint of the herby-scent of heather were in the air—as well as a few bees, bugs, flies, and the occasional grasshoppers that jumped up out of his way from the bobbing heads of white buds.

Ahead of him, the wide, gently descending meadowland extended toward a band of trees blocking the far distance. Moments before, he watched as what looked to be a double hand of Red Deer stopped browsing near the trees and then made their way into the forest.

As the young man maintained his steady pace, pulling his load, he hoped that somewhere not too far beyond those trees ahead he would finally reach the banks of the Toolie. The trees were two fingers of time way at his present speed, perhaps less.

Far to his right, across the wide swaths of grasses and a few sprawling patches of lavender, gold, and red blooming heather, he looked at the tree line of an unbroken, rising forest several spear casts away. He'd been moving somewhat parallel to that deep swath of trees growing up that slope since yesterday. The low ridge under the green canopy marked the Warm side of this shallow, curving valley drained by his traveling companion, the Big Fish River as he thought about it now, which Ureeblay was following toward the Toolie.

Beyond the tops of rising maple, beech, oak, and chestnut forest, in the far distance to the Warm under the clear blue sky he could see the misty heights of the stone palisades. If he were to hike a straight course, he and the wolf were three or four full days of travel away from those heights now, and that would be without the burden of his load of possessions and riches and not considering any difficult terrain they might encounter between here and there.

In three places along what he could see of the palisades' gentle curve to the Morn, which he hope was following the bend in the Toolie, he thought he could make out the circling specks that might be the wings of sunagles soaring above the stone bluffs.

If they were not birds, Ureeblay worried, the powerful rays of Father Sun beating down on the crown of his conical hat was making him see spots before his eyes. Not really believing that, Ureeblay hoped one of those sets of wings was the hunter, Szar Petak. A rush of good wooly-worm feelings went up his spine under his vest as he pulled the drag along though the meadowland—to think he had been so close to such a magnificent, huge bird!

Images and sensations unfolded in his mind's eye—the dark shadow descending over him in the morning mist and the feeling of the air compressing about him! The rushing power of those incredibly wide wings just over his head! The huge bird's spreading feathers glinting in the angled, early morning rays of Father Sun; the sunagle pulling up from its dive and just snatching an almost grown giant babbit right out of the air before nearly smashing into the ground! The look of awareness in the bird's bright, wide-spaced, golden eyes as it watched him...

Ureeblay shook his head to clear the images and made an effort to pay more attention to his surroundings. He had his spear caster and a fine, new spear at hand. Both parts of that long-range weapon he had racked on top of the right pull pole along with his trusty hickory staff. The young man felt comfortable with his wondrously deadly sling and sling stones two reaches away. If some attacker managed to get by a spear or sling stones, he could grab the sharpened, long flint blade of his knife. If he had time, he could reach back and retrieve the abiding mystery of the spirit hammer slung behind his left shoulder. However, if he did not pay enough attention to recognize danger before it was upon him, none of those weapons would do him any good at all.

Ureeblay was startled to realize how much he'd come to depend on the wolf to warn him of out-of-the-ordinary or curious movements that might be a possible threat. His dependency began after they left their lake and the Cavern of the Wolf. The strong young man sucked saliva into his mouth and spit to his right into the knee-high grass that was bright, lush green under the rays of Father Sun. Then he turned his head around further. Looking over his right shoulder as best as he could, Ureeblay took in what there was to see across the meadowland from under the big brim of his conical hat.

Then he brought his head back around forward and took notice of everything his eyes reported to his brain before looking to his left with the same focus, searching for anything that might signal a threat in the grass to the trees in that direction. Each movement of his neck and head brought the feeling of his long tail of hair that he'd quickly braided this morning. The heavy, lustrous black plait moved at the base of his neck and down over the handle of the spirit hammer and the back of his vest.

Now alert again with his attention on his surroundings, the growing young man continued to move apace through the meadowland while harnessed to the inside of his packed travel-drag, his hands helping support the front ends of the draw poles. He felt his skin slick under his armpits, as well as where the wide strap of the harness rested on his vest down behind his neck and across his shoulders.

Ureeblay found it was relaxing, listening to the slow, rhythmic swish ... swish ... swish of his moccasin-covered feet and legs as he moved through the knee-high grass. Sometimes he brushed aside a clump of blooming plants, sending a small flurry of white petals fluttering down into the green grass blades.

He listened to the sounds of his moving legs, along with insect noises, the birds calling from the tree line a double-double hand of strides over to his left, as well as the sound of his own breathing made louder by the wide, woven-grass brim of his hat. Those were the only things he'd heard since the honey-colored wolf forged her way through the meadow grasses and plants to the trees over to his left. Ureeblay figured she'd gone looking for something interesting among the trees. Perhaps she wanted to get a drink of water at the riverbank he'd been flanking since they departed the lake of the Cavern of the Wolf. That riverbank was not far beyond the tree line that was curving to the Cool and away from the direction that he truly wanted to take.

His now contrary traveling companion from up on the downs was a sand- and gravel-banked river, growing wider, and in many places well over his head. Moving with strong currents in some stretches, the river flowed deep through interspersed, partially exposed rocks and boulders toward the Toolie. However, for a finger of time during the hot of the day yesterday as well as taking time during the two days before, he and the wolf played bring-back-the-stick, chased each other through shallower eddies, and did what he once heard his sire call frolicking in the clear water.

While that was happening, Ureeblay was also continuing to learn from his teacher, the wolf. The young man now could pull and push his floating body through the water—never in water over his head yet—but by paddling with his arms and cupped hands while kicking with his legs and feet under the surface as he held his head and neck cocked up above the lapping, refreshing river, Ureeblay could finally swim. He thanked the spirits that he didn't mind if his head went under the water as long as he was ready for it to happen and held his breath.

In a way, his was still thankful for Crosof being his friend as a boy. He'd learned how to hold his breath for long periods because Crosof was a minor legend in Sweet Water camp for the foul nature of his butt wind. Achinay was also a minor legend for butt wind in camp; but in Achinay's case, he liked to hold a burning splinter up near his backside before breaking wind, resulting in a jet of blue flame. Fortunately, Achinay never did anything like that when he was visiting Ureeblay in his mother's shelter.

Ureeblay remembered how amazed his mother had been the first time Crosof accidentally demonstrated his only outstanding ability while visiting their shelter. Ureeblay and Crosof were about eight cycles old when it happened one day. The youngsters were laughing about something at the time, and Ureeblay figured Crosof relaxed too much and the laughter just forced it out.

Ureeblay's mother was certain something was wrong with the small boy and took him to see her friend, the camp healer. Ureeblay thought he might die trying to hold his laughter in, watching his friend straining to break wind on command in front of his mother's friend. With all the two women's attention and Ureeblay's snickers, Crosof just couldn't relax enough to perform another of his little feats, because as Ureeblay knew, it only took a little.

Ureeblay discovered trying to learn to swim was easier to do the more he could relax, too. It just so happened that from time to time, as he did relax, he broke wind underwater. However, even though he figured that fish did it, he got out of the water to make water.

Ever since the flood in the lake receded, he'd been carefully watching the wolf to see just what actions she used to swim whenever she was in the water. He studied her body movements in the clear water again and again—even opening his eyes underwater to do so. He knew fish did that, too. After comparing her results to his, he decided he put in a lot more effort for poorer results. He would get better.

Still, yesterday he was able to wolf-paddle after the frisky animal from one side of the chest-deep river to the other without having to touch bottom once, and then he paddled back to his vest, clout, kilt, moccasins, and his other gear and weapons resting on top of the drag, angled over a fallen log up on the sandy bank.

While recovering on the shore as he and the wolf had finished what was left of the small, smoked haunch of verge deer before it spoiled, Ureeblay had to admit that this swimming was strenuous exercise. However, it left all of his muscles feeling good and invigorated somehow, even if deeply relaxed. No wonder the wolf liked to swim. Ureeblay didn't fear the water anymore, or so he liked to think, but as he had swallowed the last bite of smoked venison that he cared to eat, he recognized that if he did something wrong and panicked, this river easily could drown him—traveling companion or not.

He knew he had a lot to learn about this swimming to get it right, because the wolf could outdistance him at her whim. Ureeblay figured all his efforts would be worth it the very next time he landed in water over his head, or water that seemed to be over his head. Although he hoped that never would happen accidentally, he'd watched the joy the wolf seemed to display whenever she ran headlong, leaping from the bank, splashing into the water no matter how deep.

Thinking of that, and remembering how the young wolf had rushed out on the damp meadow to protect their babbit kill from the threat of the huge sunagle, Ureeblay now saw that she was fearless. The young man was starting to consider that was a good way to live a life.

It had taken him just over two frustrating days to get used to handling the loaded travel-drag while moving through trees, or up grass slopes, or learning to pick the most direct route as he made his way through a woods he'd not scouted, skirting around the third and biggest lake in doing so.

Each of the last hand of nights after leaving the Cavern of the Wolf, Ureeblay made their camp in the trees close enough to the moving river to easily top-off his babbit-stomach water bag, but far enough away to keep clear of any animals that might use the riverbank as a nightly travel corridor or a hunting ground.

The sacred fire each night also was a deterrent that kept animals, other than the wolf, away from their evening camp. However, he still found a clear, high branch to hoist his net of food supplies tied on top of the big belly plate and under the big turtle shell all up off the floor of the woods. Only three inquisitive, half-grown, minktus kits out on their own without their mother, had dared to approach so far. They obviously were feeling safe enough in their part of the woods and moving through the dark. Ureeblay and the wolf heard the quarrelsome squeaks and joyous chatter coming from the small, dark water-loving rodents a good stone's throw away. The wolf actually came alert sooner, her head trained toward their approach across the sacred fire, which got his attention.

Beyond the low dancing flames, back along a faint trail, he saw the three tiny pairs of luminous-red points bouncing and weaving along toward the camp that were their eyes reflecting the firelight. Ureeblay found it hard to believe they continued approaching. It wasn't until the growing wolf stood up from Ureeblay's side of the low, sacred fire and the minktus kits saw her that they vanished without another sound into the deep shadows of the weeds and bushes. Before that, they didn't seem to have any fear of him. Ureeblay had to admit, the minktus kits had no reason to fear him. Unless they scrambled up the tree he'd anchored his supplies in and tried to get to the food by either climbing down, or chewing though the leather-plaited, pigskin cordage going over the limb and holding their netted goods up in the air.

He easily heard the sound of his growling stomach over the slow, rhythmic swish ... swish ... swish of his moccasin-covered feet and his moving legs as his travel-drag brushed over a wide swath of grass behind him. The alert young man knew a small child would have no problem following the trail he was making. However, he wasn't worried about small children.

Other than when he'd been at the edge of the Toolie valley and listened to the ominous, foreign-sounding call and response rhythms of the bullroarers coming from the heights to the Warm and the Cool, he'd had no other sign along the way of Hurstmon since before venturing out on the bog downs. However, he knew the group of warriors who'd been on his trail could cover long distances with their measured trot, run, trot, run, trot, and then gallop. The young man felt that his trail from the devastated waste created by the stampede, and all the way to his lakeshore camp would be the determining factor in their pursuit. If the storm washed that evidence away before they had the chance to find it, then those scouts could only have a vague idea of where he might be.

In addition, before he reached the lake he had never stopped moving during his flight, other than to rest, through even the first storm up in the highlands. He hoped the colorfully dressed Hurstmon making up the small group of warriors who were after him figured he would keep moving in that manner until he reached safety. Since they could not know he found his way across the river by accident, Ureeblay was counting on them assuming he could get back across the Toolie once he reached its bank, or sometime soon after.

With all the time he and the wolf spent at the lake undetected, the Hurstmon easily could be looking for him two or three hands of travel-days away. It was possible they had even given up their pursuit, thinking that by now he was already across the deep, blue river and was now safe in the territory of his own kind.

However, Ureeblay realized the Hurstmon could just as easily come charging out of that forest off to his right and try to run him down and skewer him on their lances. He craned his neck and head around again, sweeping his gaze over everything behind him to his right. Satisfied nothing seemed amiss, he turned his neck and head back to check along his goal, the trees down the sloping field of overgrown meadow ahead of him.

As he looked about for any threats around him, the young man doubted his descriptions of seeing the Hurstmon up close would affect the way the Welow Swongli thought about the Hurstmon, once the tales of his great adventure became known to the rest of the clans at this summer's congregation—which he was going to find a way to attend.

As it was now, from time to time around a Camp's evening fire a hunter would relate how he, or his sire before him, had seen a group of the Hurstmon on the far bank of the Toolie. Occasionally during summer congregations, a band of storytellers would act out the extremely bawdy story called Coyote Tricks Lost Spear, which purported to explain how the World Mother allowed the great trickster, Coyote, to deceive a lost Welow Swongli hunter. In the story, Coyote's trick resulted in the creation of the first two Hurstmon, and explained how it came to be that these particular children of World Mother's were so big and looked as they do.

Ureeblay chuckled as he continued to look around the meadowland while he continued to think about the story. The last congregation was the only time he'd seen it because in the past his mother had always taken the family back to their shelter when she found out Coyote Tricks Lost Spear was about to be presented. Of course, before he finally did see it he'd heard from Achinay many times what Lost Spear did, several times, during the depiction of the tale. However, each time his one-time friend related the tale, the retelling became more and more outrageous, so Ureeblay wasn't shocked when he did see the bawdy tale.

It took two storytellers in a funny costume to portray the mother of the first Hurstmon and four more members of the guild wearing two costumes representing the first two Hurstmon born into the world, the un-named male and female fraternal twins. The story also required another storyteller to play the part of Lost Spear, who somehow made his way across the wide Toolie where Coyote confounded his senses to the point he gladly fell for the deception. Because the story needed more than a hand of actors as well as a spellbinding storyteller to narrate the action, no single storyteller tried to tell the story alone at a Camp's evening fire during the rest of the cycle—at least when any young children could hear the tale.

Seeing nothing during his observation of the terrain behind him, to his right, or in front of him that might alert him to the presence of descendents of the original twins, Ureeblay continued his scan over to the closer trees to this left. He snorted, seeing the honey-colored wolf bounding through the grass with her pink tongue flapping out of the right side of her wet muzzle. With her tail wagging as she came toward him; and with her exaggerated bounds, Ureeblay now recognized she wanted to play or was just demonstrating her joy. He couldn't help but admire the young animal as she approached.

A wolf as a playful traveling companion—a rush of excitement swept through him. Who'd have ever thought of such a thing! In addition, she was putting on weight and, Ureeblay realized, the last time she rubbed against him, she came about half-a-hand-width higher up his leg, to just over his knee! Then, another thought came to him—how could the wolf be acting this way, prancing about, if she sensed any threat of danger about?

He couldn't help smiling, as he turned his head forward to watch where he was going with the approaching wolf in his left peripheral vision. Ureeblay got back into his comfortable gait, dragging the resistance of his load behind him. He felt a bead of sweat collecting, then started slowly sliding down his skin from his right armpit, down over the side of his ribs under his bison vest. The sun-bright wolf neared and slowed down to match pace with the moving contraption, taking Ureeblay's mind off of the slow pace of the bothersome trickle of sweat.

He was glad their journey so far mostly had been over flat terrain, if not down grade. All his walking had slightly burnished the soft leather soles of Ureeblay's hunting moccasins much faster than he'd anticipated, making pulling the drag up any smooth, grassy slopes hard, sometimes slippery work. However, he didn't want to scuff-up the pigskin with a rough stone; or scrape it with the edge of a utility blade, the soft leather would wear through soon enough as it was.

Right now, he just wanted to put this meadowland behind him as soon as possible. For no particular reason, he wanted to enter the tree line ahead where the Red Deer entered the woods. If he turned to his left and entered those trees along the river, he didn't know how long it would take him to get this particular section of open terrain he'd been moving along behind him, and the idea of heading into the nearest cover didn't seem right.

He suddenly had a bad wooly-worm feeling that someone or something was watching him from a distance. He didn't slow his progress to look around, but kept faced forward as if he was unaware of the sensation, as his sire had taught him.

His sire told him that a hunter had to have a well-developed sense of what was around him at all times. Ureeblay remembered the evening under the bowl of the clear, glittering heavens after his sky lessons were over for the night, and he increased his pace toward the far tree line. That night was his last sky lesson a hand of days before his sire did not come back from hunting.